Elrose hurried towards one of the topside portals. As he had gotten to the upper deck, he had been handed a high-altitude com unit for communication, breathing and warmth. That would save him some effort. A satyr had helped dial him into the same link that Maelen and the others on the top of the ship would be using.
It had taken him longer to get here than one might have hoped. He had not yet properly unpacked his baggage and so had been forced to scramble through his trunks and wardrobe to get everything together. Fortunately, he kept his combat robe stocked and mostly ready to go. He’d swapped out a few of his wands for ones he thought be more appropriate, and had a few seconds of debate on the choice of rings. Several of them did not get along with each other, given elemental affiliations and such. However, he had felt that some additional lightning protection would be worthwhile.
He also had to load up on the most relevant potions. He grabbed several vials of plain water as well. One could not store potions in a combat robe; most potions had to be relatively fresh. He had swapped out his boots and belt and finally grabbed his primary combat staff. He took only one staff, since he would need the other hand for wands.
He noted the pressure spell keeping a barrier between the ship and the ladders leading topside. He stepped through and felt the air pressure drop and temperature decrease quickly. Fortunately, the com circlet was doing its job. He would need to study these units, if he survived.
Elrose awkwardly climbed the ladder; the staff and his long robe made it tricky. He finally made it to the roof of the cloudship. There was Maelen near the front of the ship, looking towards the newest arrivals. As he headed toward the seer, a carpet rose through the roof of the cloud to his left and then quickly spun and headed aft of the ship and down towards the majority of attackers.
“What do we have ahead?” Elrose asked the seer.
“These four liches and dragons are further out, so the carpets have been going aft. We now have two carpets headed to the forward targets, and a third is nearing launch,” Maelen responded.
Elrose nodded. “Trevin?”
Trevin came in over the command channel. “Go ahead, Elrose.”
“Alright if I take one or more of the forward attackers?” Elrose asked.
“By yourself?” Trevin sounded uncertain.
“It’s been a while, but I think I should be able to manage at least one, and do damage to a few of the others,” the wizard responded. Maelen raised an eyebrow, impressed.
“Go for it,” Trevin came back.
Elrose smiled at Maelen. “Never fought a lich, but I wrote a paper on ice dragons once. Have a pretty good idea how to deal with them.”
“Then have fun turning theory to practice,” Maelen chuckled.
Elrose grinned and concentrated on his boots, reciting the keyword to activate his link to them. His robe began to billow as the boots brought up air pressure underneath and around them, allowing Elrose to rise above the ground. He nodded to Maelen with a grin and said, “Gotta run!” Maelen nodded as Elrose took off running very quickly towards the forward dragons.
Jenn gulped as the very large carpet they were on began surging downward. It felt like her stomach was going to come up through her mouth. She gritted her teeth and hung on tighter.
The catcher carpets were larger and more complex than the combat carpets. The main carpet was good sized and could, in theory, seat eight. However, some space was reserved for those who were caught, so the crew was only five people: the pilot, a backup pilot, Jenn, an aeromaster named Paulinas who could also do some healing, and a large fellow about whom she knew nothing. The most obvious thing for him to do was probably to reel people in.
The carpet was odd in that the “carpet” part of it, while good sized, was not out of line for a large room carpet. However, around the edges of the carpet, including the corners, were large nets extending another fifteen feet from the carpet. Magical buoys at the inner and outer corners of the netting supported the nets in the air. Apparently, these carpets actually caught falling people.
Their pilot, Talinea, had told her they were fortunate today in that there would be no aetós in the air due to insufficient air to provide lift for their wings. Therefore, they would be concentrating on spotting and catching people knocked off carpets. That and coming alongside carpets to try to heal people.
Jenn took a deep breath. If she had thought healing people on the sailing ship was a task, this was insane! As they plummeted to get below the rear attackers, she noted that the large fellow was paying very close attention to the carpets that were approaching the dragons. She suddenly realized that he must have some form of magical vision to spot people.
That gave her an idea. She had not been sure what she as a thaumaturge could bring to the table, but she could enhance her eyesight with a spell she knew. That would allow her to spot people in trouble. She grabbed the necessary components and began the spell.
As the spell took hold, she blinked to adjust her new high-powered vision. She decided she would also turn on wizard sight, as that might help spot potential issues. She blinked again and looked over towards the liches. Crap! She wished she had not done that. The ice dragons appeared about as she would expect, although what she expected she did not know, but the liches were coiling masses of blackness. Not at all pleasant; in fact, quite disquieting.
Jenn spoke to her carpetmates on her circlet. “I’ve upped my eyesight and wizard sight. Should I keep an eye out across the board, or should I focus on particular carpets?”
The large fellow turned and grinned at her. “Teamwork, good.”
Crap! That thing is big! Gastropé thought to himself, seeing the ice dragon as they swung in closer to the dragon-mounted lich. He really had to focus on the giant ice dragon, which was about one hundred feet long from nose to tail. The reason for his focus on the ice dragon was due to the fact that he had tried to look at the storm lich and had nearly soiled his pants.
For once, he was glad to have faced down Tom in the valley, because while the lich was completely terrifying, it was still less terrifying than a greater demon. Actually, Tom was terrifying, but was not sickening. That was the difference, Gastropé decided in the few moments he had to think about it. A greater demon radiated awe-inspiring power, making one feel feeble and insignificant; the lich sent deep, ancestral chills down one’s spine.
The storm lich was probably about seven feet tall, emaciated and wearing rotting formal clothes with a huge, ragged black cape. But the rotting clothes were nothing compared to the lich’s rotting flesh. His first look at the lich’s eyeless face had revealed what appeared to be maggots crawling from the lich’s eye sockets, as well as holes in its cheeks. Further, the cold near the ice dragon and lich were far worse than the already sub-freezing wind temperature.
“Idire nox firatus!” Gastropé shouted, launching a fireball from his wand nearly point-blank at the lich where it was perched on the dragon’s back. He did not want to stare directly at it. The carpet quickly banked, even as the ice dragon stumbled in the air just below them. Penelope’s gravity spell or whatever it was had rocked the dragon.
Gastropé twisted his head to look back at the dragon and lich to see if his spell had done much. Apparently not. Another carpet was coming in on the same trajectory they had just used. Fireballs, lightning bolts and some more weird light disturbances from the gravity wave rolled over the dragon and lich. Gastropé could not see much more of the latest attack, as they were moving quickly away to get lined up again.